More than 400 events in nearly every state, organised by DeFlock. Council meetings, records requests, information sessions. The organisers say plainly what it is not.
Independently reported by more than one outlet, with no primary document in our hands yet.
DeFlock, a national anti-ALPR organising group led by Ed Vogel, has called a National Week of Action Against ALPRs for August 16 to 22, 2026. Organisers report more than 400 events planned across nearly every US state, with roughly 22,000 people registered. There is deliberately no single national action: each participating city is asked to hold at least one event of its own, and the published formats are ordinary civic ones — city council appearances, public records requests, town halls, information sessions, and neighbourhood gatherings. A map at noalprs.com shows where events are happening, though organisers withhold specific details from the public listing. Vogel has stated that DeFlock does not advocate or organise around damaging cameras.
This site exists to make local action possible, and for one week there is a national scaffold for it. Almost everything Unsurveilled publishes is designed to be used by a person acting alone — a records request, a dossier, a council question — and acting alone is slow and discouraging. Four hundred events means the person in your town who has been reading about this quietly is probably not the only one, and finding each other is most of what turns a concern into a campaign. It also matters that the published tactics are the boring ones. Council meetings and records requests are what actually moved Chandler, Pinal County, Renton and Duluth, and a week of them is worth more than a week of noise. We are not the organisers of this and it is not our campaign; DeFlock called it, and pointing people toward it is simply the useful thing to do. The distinction the organisers draw is the same one we draw: opposing a surveillance system through public process is a different activity from damaging its equipment, and the difference is not a technicality.
DeFlock has called a National Week of Action Against ALPRs for August 16 to 22, 2026.
There is no single national action. Each participating city is asked to hold at least one event of its own.
Published formats include city council advocacy, public records requests, town halls, information sessions and neighbourhood gatherings.
DeFlock is led by Ed Vogel, who stated that "DeFlock doesn't advocate or organize around smashing or taking down cameras."
Organisers deliberately withhold specific event details from the public map to avoid interference.
The figures of more than 400 events and roughly 22,000 registered participants are the organisers' own counts, reported by the Atlanta Press Collective. Nobody independent has tallied them, and registration is not attendance. We cite them as the organisers' figures.
Separate incidents of ALPR camera vandalism have occurred across the country and have drawn law-enforcement attention, including from the FBI. Reporting attributes these to people acting on their own rather than to the organised week, and DeFlock has stated it does not organise around them. Unsurveilled records both facts and does not merge them: a person damaging a camera is not a participant in a council meeting, and treating the two as one movement would misdescribe both.
DeFlock has called a National Week of Action Against ALPRs for August 16 to 22, 2026. Organisers report more than 400 events planned across nearly every US state, with roughly 22,000 people registered.
There is deliberately no single national action. Each participating city is asked to hold at least one event of its own, and the published formats are ordinary civic ones:
Organisers describe the threshold as low. In the words of DeFlock’s Ed Vogel, “even if one person stands on a corner with a sign, that’s an event.”
A map at noalprs.com shows where events are happening. Organisers deliberately withhold specific details from the public listing to avoid interference — which, given that fusion centres circulated intelligence on anti-ALPR organising and planned events, is a reasonable precaution rather than a dramatic one.
The organisers have been explicit, and we are repeating it because the distinction matters more than usual this week.
“DeFlock doesn’t advocate or organize around smashing or taking down cameras.” — Ed Vogel
Camera vandalism has been happening across the country, separately, and has drawn law-enforcement attention including from the FBI. Unsurveilled has covered one such case and will cover others, because they are newsworthy. That is not the same as this.
Our position has not changed and does not change for a week of action: opposing a surveillance system through public process is a different activity from damaging its equipment. The first is protected, effective and slow. The second is a crime, exposes the person who does it to real consequences, and hands every agency in the country a reason to talk about vandals instead of about warrants. This site publishes nothing that helps anyone do the second.
Look at what actually ended programmes this year.
Chandler shut down 40 cameras because a routine audit found use it could not explain. Pinal County declined renewal because a sheriff read the Fourth Amendment. Renton covered its cameras after sustained public comment. Duluth let a grant-funded contract lapse. Not one of those was a mass action. All of them were somebody in a room, on the record, with a document.
A week that puts four hundred of those in the calendar at once is worth supporting.
We did not organise this and it is not our campaign. DeFlock called it. Our Warrant Required campaign is aimed at a legal standard rather than a vendor, and it continues either way.
What we can usefully do is what this site is for: if you are going to a meeting this week, go with the facts about your own town rather than about somebody else’s.
And afterwards: send us what came back. A records response is what turns a blank space on the map into a record, and the week is worth far more if it leaves documents behind.
Independently reported by more than one outlet, with no primary document in our hands yet.
Not yet obtained
Verified as of
Find the event nearest you, or make one
The organisers' map at noalprs.com shows where events are happening. If nothing is listed near you, "one person on a corner with a sign" counts as an event according to the organisers — and so does turning up at a council meeting with a records request in hand, which is the version we would suggest.
Questions this story leaves open
This Unsurveilled record is licensed CC BY 4.0. Linked source material remains the property of its publishers. Spotted an error? Tell us — corrections are logged in public, not quietly edited away.
